Julie Robinson (Community Youth Development Manager)

Youth Project

The Hessle Road Network Youth Project  works with young people aged 9-21 predominately from the Newington and St Andrews (NASA) wards of Hull.

The project has several key areas of work, the Alternative Learning Programme for Schools (ALP’s) project, The 223 Centre, evening and holiday activities, training, mentoring, outreach and detached work all of which support and benefit local young people by giving them the opportunity to become involved in fun activities which also help them to develop skills.

ALP’s Project

The ALP’s project works with young people aged 13-16 mainly from Endeavour School and Sirius Academy.  We offer a range of courses to young people who have been referred to us by the schools for a number of reasons such as behavioural issues.

We offer a variety of awards and qualifications mainly through ASDAN and OCN.  We work with the young people in small groups with a high staff to young person ratio in order to be able to offer plenty of one to one support.

The ALP’s project has had a good deal of success in helping young people to achieve awards and qualifications. Over the life of the project 127 qualifications/awards ranging from short courses to the Certificate of Personal Effectiveness (CoPE) awards have been achieved by young people.  We also have a proven track record in retention as the vast majority of young people who start on the ALP’s project have stayed with us for a substantial amount of time.

The benefits of this project are vast to both the community in general and the young people specifically.  The young people are being given the chance to achieve awards and certificates and perhaps more importantly improve life skills such as working with other people as part of a team, problem solving and generally dealing with a range of social situations.

223 Project

The 223 project is another alternative learning project that we run in partnership with the West Hull Inclusion Partnership (WHIP). This project is based on Beverley Road and has been running since April 2008. 

The project is aimed at young people who have a range of issues including behavioural difficulties and literacy problems.  The project runs along the same lines as the ALP’s project offering intensive support with a high staff to young person ratio.  The main aim of the project, as well as encouraging the young people to complete accredited courses, is to focus on the personal and social development of the young people involved.

Training Project

The Training Project has been running for approximately 1 year.  During that time we have run a number of OCN level 2 courses in Youth Work.  These courses have been offered to local residents, including young people, who are interested in becoming Youth Workers.

They are short 5 week courses which run from our project base and are delivered in an informal friendly atmosphere.  As well as the level 2 we have also offered a level 3 course which takes around 6 months to complete.

We have had a number of the files moderated by OCN and have had excellent feedback around the quality of the courses and the files we have submitted. To date we have had 70 people successfully completing courses through this project.

We have been surprised by the amount of interest in the courses which has far exceeded our expectations and we are currently looking for funding in order to be able to continue to offer this training.

CAB Project

The Community Action Box (CAB) project is currently staffed by 3 full time youth workers who work across the Newington and St Andrews area.

We also carry out regular weekly detached work sessions in the Newington and St Andrews area.  These sessions focus on working with young people who do not necessarily have any involvement with any other agencies and who don’t always access more traditional youth work provision.  We offer them information on services and activities available within the Hull area.

The CAB project also offers 7 evening sessions per week.  The activities on offer during the evening sessions are varied and very much led by the young people’s ideas and suggestions, with activities ranging from dodge ball to singing competitions and issue based work to cookery.

As well as this regular weekly work the CAB team also provide holiday activities and trips to young people.  Over the last couple of years we have been involved with organising community barbeques, cycle rides including a group completing the Trans Pennine Trail (TPT), a trip to Eden Camp, trips to Beverley Westwood, Dalby Forest and Hessle Foreshore, sports days, pool tournaments and lots more.

Youth Panel

We feel it is important that our work is young person led and therefore we will continue to support and develop our steering group for the project which is made up of young people known as the ‘Youth Panel’.  Members of the ‘Youth Panel’ have and will continue to give us informed feedback on all aspects of our work including their opinions on our plans for a new youth centre.

CAB Timetable

This timetable is subject to change, for further information contact a member of the Youth Team on 01482 606077.